


Reunion

by Neigedens



Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:59:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neigedens/pseuds/Neigedens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on a cycling tour, Kitty and Ada meet up with their brother again in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> This story was actually based off of the aborted epilogue that Forster wrote himself. I definitely encourage you to read that first; obviously it's a lot better than mine! You can read it [here](http://devo79.dreamwidth.org/2053.html).
> 
> Forster's epilogue was about Kitty running across Maurice and Alec in the woods years after. This is the same story, but with Ada dropped into it.

She and her brother had never liked each other. This much was true. If Kitty had been by herself her indignation might have made itself known before anything else, but Ada's shock, as always, registered itself first.

"Maurice!" Ada cried, and before anyone else could say anything she had flung herself into his arms. Ada had always had a penchant for the romantic, dramatic gesture, a fact that Maurice had appeared to have forgotten. For a second he was motionless, stunned. "Ada," he finally said, and raised his hands. She did not step back. "Ada, you can't--" But he was unable or unwilling to shift her, and his voice had a more gentle tone than any it had known during the time Maurice had been their brother and not this wild man of the woods. Their brother, Kitty thought sourly, would have thrown off Ada violently and jeered at such a womanly display of emotion.

"A disgrace! Arthur had said you're a disgrace to our family, and I always thought..." said Ada, though her words were barely discernible through the sob in her voice. Kitty sensed she was more shocked than saddened.

While Maurice tried to extricate himself, Kitty studied his companion. She wondered if the man knew Maurice's past, or if he was greatly surprised to find two vacationing ladies suddenly descend upon him and his fellow, crying of disgraces and scandals.

"So," said Kitty, with an affectedly airy tone; she wished to come off as the sharper sister. "Are you the one who's turned our brother into a wild man of the woods?"

The companion had been eyeing the trees and woodpiles as if he expected they would turn against him, but when Kitty spoke to him he became unexpectedly charming. "I reckon he managed that pretty well enough himself, miss." His words were deferential but his tone was insolent. The mixture of the two did not repel Kitty. She was curious about this young man with whom her brother had obviously "gone wrong," though just how wrong she had yet to realize. She found herself more drawn to him than she was to her brother, whose absence had embittered an already bitter memory.

"Oh Morrie," blubbered Ada. "How could you do it? Think of our mother--"

"Ada, that's enough," said Maurice, but his words lacked force. In the intervening years Maurice had forgotten how to be the tyrant. Kitty sensed this and tried to use it to her advantage. Watching Ada descend into near-senselessness had made her more detached, more determined. She was overtaken by curiosity, not towards her brother but towards his situation. Ada's husband had hinted that he knew the reason, but Kitty, her sister, and her mother had never been told why Maurice was exiled to the woods like this. It was a man's business, Arthur had implied.

"You're not very civilized now, Maurice," said Kitty, though she might have been addressing his friend. "You've not even introduced us."

"I'm Scudder," said the man helpfully. "And you're Kitty, I suppose. I've heard about you."

"Miss Hall, please," said Kitty, rather enjoying herself now. She thought maybe Scudder was too; he looked like he might have heard the irony in her voice and had raised his eyebrows, but this was too much for Maurice.

"For God's sake," he said, the old venom returning to his voice. Ada winced. "We're not inviting you inside for _tea_."

"Actually," said Scudder thoughtfully, "we don't drink tea. I usually have a cuppa coffee in the mornings, though. Care to join me?" To Kitty's surprise he was looking at her.

Maurice was surprised, too. "Alec--" Before he could object Scudder had walked over to him and said a few unheard words in Maurice's ear. Maurice nodded and acquiesced so readily that afterward Kitty was convinced that part of her knew the truth before her mind was consciously aware of it.

"Ada," said Maurice, gruff yet gentle again. "Sit down. You've had a shock. Go on." He eased her onto the stump in front of the cottage. Ada, being Ada, offered no refusal. With a raised eyebrow, Kitty followed Scudder inside.

The shack, as it more properly might be called, had two rooms. The one Kitty was led into was extremely rustic. There was a table, chairs, and a stove top. Scudder went to the cupboard and extracted two earthenware cups, which he set on the table almost daintily as he put water on for coffee. Kitty studied her surroundings intently and Scudder studied her.

"You're being stuffy," said Alec suddenly, jarring Kitty, who had been hoping to be the one to break the silence with a suitably cutting remark. "Didn't ever think you'd be so stuffy."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Kitty. "Why on Earth would you expect me to be any particular way?"

Scudder shrugged. "Only from things Maurice's said about you."

"Maurice!" she cried, incensed. Scudder started and watched her even more closely because it was the first emotion she had displayed that was genuinely hers. "You expect me to be _breezy_ about the brother who ruined my family's name? Who shamed all of us?"

Scudder shrugged. "Guess so. But you can't really feel that way. You're only saying that because you think that's how you _ought_ to feel."

"What makes you so sure of how _I_ feel?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. You're a bit like him, I suppose."

This, on top of everything else, was too much for Kitty. She was speechless in the face of such an appalling comparison, so Scudder was free to go on.

"All we can ask of you and your sister is that you don't tell no one you saw us. 'Specially the police."

"The police?" asked Kitty, and suddenly she understood. Years of secrecy, the fact that this man knew so much about Maurice (because she didn't think her brother would relate to just any stranger descriptions of his forgotten sisters,) the single bedroom in the cottage, even the lone pair of mugs in the cupboard, all fell into place. She gasped. "You don't mean--"

Scudder now looked uncomfortable and conscious of giving away more than he'd meant to. But Kitty was not appalled; it had been strange enough to see her brother, so realizing the situation was not much stranger. She now spoke to Scudder as if he were a distant relation, which he almost was. "You don't mean you were the one who talked him into giving it all up?"

Scudder shrugged. "More the other way around, I s'pose." He paused. Kitty studied him and was curious but not displeased by him. He went on, "So, you shan't tell anyone you've seen us."

"I wouldn't dream of telling our mother that I've been here with you and him," said Kitty slowly. "She's been through enough. Nor anyone else, of course." The furtive element in Scudder made one want to confide in him, make promises.

"Thanks," said Scudder ungraciously, and thankfully at that moment the coffee was done.

~

It was pure self-interest that caused Alec to make coffee and speak with her, to charm her and be just a little charmed in return. He and Maurice had just paid a month's rent to the monosyllabic, half-deaf man who owned the cottage. (This was their preferred type of landlord.) Though the cottage must have shocked Maurice's sisters, for him and Alec it was luxurious.

Alec's interest in staying where they were for the month (for of course they never considered staying anywhere longer than that) was not strictly monetary. Alec liked the place, the woods surrounding it, the river close by. He preferred to be by water, whenever possible. Being by the sea would have suited him, but he and Maurice had not yet got out that far. Maurice, being unobservant and single-minded, did not mind where they settled as long as he was with his friend and they were safe. Alec was naturally more attuned to the outdoors, and so he endeavored to get a bead on Kitty so he could convince Maurice (and, indeed, himself) that it would be all right to stay here for another three weeks.

Kitty he was certain he understood. He had accused her of being like Maurice, but in fact she really was more like himself: shrewd and quick to see how the situation lay. And she was sympathetic enough towards him, if not to her brother, to leave things as they were, though Alec anticipated an argument from Maurice about that.

Ada was a different story. Alec didn't know as much about her, although he had sensed that she had somehow become entangled in the bust-up between Maurice and Clive Durham. He had never asked how, simply because Maurice had never been forthcoming and Alec saw no reason to press him.

Alec could not know that, unlike Kitty, Ada was a person blessed with almost no memory. Maurice had been gone for so long and had disappeared so completely it was like he had died, so seeing him again like this was like witnessing a resurrection. In him she saw a man roughened by the outdoors but altogether more gentle and, in fact, inwardly happier than the unkind, unthinking brother that he had been to her, and she cried to see him now. Maurice himself was alarmed by her, but he was unsure of himself; he could not deal with her as he once had.

"I can't believe it," Ada said, not for the first time. "After all this time."

Maurice nodded. In the absence of any other idea, he had returned to his interrupted work and was loading cords of wood onto a handcart. "Hadn't you best be getting back to your inn? It'll be dark soon."

Ada shook her head. "Have you been here, all this time?"

He dropped a plank of wood on the cart with a loud clunking noise. His heart was seized with panic and suspicion. He would have bolted then if he could have, but Alec was still in the house with Kitty. "Not always, no. We...move around. A lot."

"You and...that man," she said, and he nodded, wincing. "Who is he?"

Maurice shrugged. He hadn't shrugged off civilized society for almost a decade to sugarcoat the truth for his sister, but at the same time he didn't wish to witness her disgust or perturbation if he told her. He continued working even more savagely. "A friend."

"You and him...," said Ada. She stood up and was regarding the woods and woodpiles intently. Putting things together, Maurice supposed gloomily. Finally she spoke. "You and he must care a great deal for each other. You must be great friends."

Maurice nodded quickly, but the trembling note in her voice made him strike. "Ada, you mustn't tell anyone you've seen me. Not Mother, certainly not Chapman--"

Part of him expected--even Ada would rebel at such a command. But she only nodded and said, "Of course. I understand," although she didn't. The precise facts of the situation had not occurred to her, nor would they ever fully. Unlike Kitty, for years she had not wondered over the mystery of Maurice's disappearance. Her husband's dark intimations hadn't roused her curiosity, or at least hadn't sustained it, so when she saw her brother obviously happy and healthy, with companionship he valued, she had no wish to destroy it. She offered to shake his hand and he did, rather embarrassed at her graciousness. It made him suspicious, but he could not make himself mistrust her.

Kitty and Alec came out of the cottage then. Kitty said something pert to him. Her he could not trust as easily, but he was too grateful that they were picking up their bicycles and leaving to say anything back.

Alec watched the two sisters ride away and even waved at Ada when she looked back before turning the bend. When Alec went to say something to his friend, Maurice had already returned to work, so Alec joined him. They didn't speak of the visit until that night, when Alec was kneeling by the windowsill watching the river. It was a good night; clear, with a moon that dappled the water's surface.

He was also listening for sounds of Maurice in the other room, expecting to hear him packing up their few belongings. Maurice was likely to see heinous designs in itinerant birdwatchers and nosy landlords who chanced across the two men, so Alec supposed that the invasion of his sisters would send him into a panic.

It didn't, though, or at least not superficially. Maurice eventually wandered into the bedroom like it was the smoking room at his old club, but then he always seemed that way to Alec, who suspected that he was being just a little unfair by thinking of Maurice in such terms still. Maurice was more impervious to his surroundings than anyone Alec had ever met. He was single-minded that way. Maurice walked up to him and stood with Alec by the window, ruffling Alec's hair but saying nothing else.

"Nice out," said Alec, finally. "It'll rain later tomorrow, I reckon, but nice for now."

Maurice nodded, obviously not taking in the scene outside. Even after years of living rough, Maurice had never acquired a great appreciation for the varieties of a view. If the beauty of the sparkling water outside influenced him, it did so subconsciously.

Alec watched him. Together, they each rolled their own cigarette and smoked it in silence. Usually they chatted while smoking, but tonight they only watched. The night was calm and the sounds of frogs and crickets from the river were the only sounds. Alec supposed that in the right frame of mind the stillness of the evening could seem ominous. It wasn't to him, but with Maurice you never knew.

Finally Alec asked the question that he cared about least, that needed to be answered most urgently. "Think we should head out from here?"

Maurice didn't answer right away, nor had Alec expected him to. The question was intended to pave the way for further conversation. This was the easiest way to start things: business end first. Maurice responded after a lengthy pause. "I suppose you think I'm silly, to let my little sisters disturb me. Get my wind up."

"You don't seem disturbed to me," said Alec.

"I'm holding back. You always do say I'm paranoid."

Alec shrugged. "I always don't say it's a bad thing. Necessarily."

Maurice sighed. "They'll leave the countryside soon. They wouldn't stay long. Ada hates biking." The thought, unexpectedly, made him laugh. "Fancy that. I can't fathom how Kitty talked her into it."

Alec nodded. "Nice that they're keeping busy," he remarked off-handedly.

Maurice laughed again. "I could give a damn. It's only amusing to me. In a general way."

"Still, you're not unhappy you seed 'em, are you?"

Maurice eyed him. The paranoid streak in Alec wondered if he was being analyzed, but Maurice grinned at his friend through the smoke and said, "I hadn't thought of it, in fact. I suppose, generally, it's nice for them to know that I'm not dead, and it's likewise very jolly for me. But perhaps you want to call it quits and are hoping I'll give myself up to my sisters and let them put me in an asylum."

"Well, naturally," said Alec, with forced good humor. "I known you too long now, I s'pose." Sarcasm, he found, was usually the precursor to the friendly dust-ups Maurice liked to have instead of actually talking about things.

But Maurice only knocked him lightly about the back of the head and said, "I wouldn't worry about me getting flighty, Alec. We're here for another three weeks and then we'll steal down the river in the dead of night, one just like this one--"

"Stop it, stop it," choked Alec through laughter as Maurice chaffed him again, somehow managing to knock him about and tickle him at the same time. "New moon, it better be, not this beastly bright one."

"A new moon, as you like it," said Maurice. "And we'll steal down the river and wind up by the sea, find a place there, how does that sound? Don't you like that?"

"Get off me, go on, geroff," said Alec, still laughing and rolling Maurice on the ground and embracing him in retaliation. Maurice huffed out a breath and pulled Alec to him. After the assurance they ended up in bed and Alec ceased worrying about having to leave the woods before he was ready. In a way he would never admit, his sisters' visit gave Maurice an odd peace that hadn't been lacking before, but that reaffirmed their purpose for running away in the first place. Maurice scoffed at Ada's crying and wishing to kiss his hand, but he couldn't hate her for it, and somehow the fact that his sisters never tried to contact him again made him love them more earnestly and more genuinely than he ever could have under any other circumstances.

Alec would only be able to piece this together in the coming weeks; that evening they only could love each other, and Alec slept with the comfort of the river outside his window and the warmth of the fire indoors. Their situation was not always so physically comfortable, but Alec always enjoyed it all the more in the knowledge that the only constant through it all was Maurice's heartbeat beneath his own.


End file.
